Tuesday, April 21, 2009

When PowerPoints Go Bad - Lincoln at Gettysburg


Having sat through horrific PowerPoint presentations that totally obscure the message (Don't you love it when nervous or inexperienced presenters laboriously read every single word to you?), I can't help but share this parody PowerPoint presentation of what it might have been like if Abraham Lincoln had delivered his legendary Gettysburg address using the Microsoft Marvel instead of what we have today.

Hats off to Peter Novig (http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm) for making this happen.

Here's their introduction:

And now please welcome President Abraham Lincoln.

Good morning. Just a second while I get this connection to work. Do I press this button here? Function-F7? No, that's not right. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to reboot. Hold on a minute. Um, my name is Abe Lincoln and I'm your president. While we're waiting, I want to thank Judge David Wills, chairman of the committee supervising the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery. It's great to be here, Dave, and you and the committee are doing a great job. Gee, sometimes this new technology does have glitches, but we couldn't live without it, could we? Oh - is it ready? OK, here we go:

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Purdue fires up new early-stage fund, expands talent database


Purdue, always the innovator in higher education and disruptive technology, earlier this year launched a faculty/student early-stage fund that has superb connectivity with both angels and VCs. Check out the new Emerging Innovations Fund at http://www.emerginginnovationsfund.org/ for more info. Also of major merit, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation has expanded the university talent database to include top faculty (and moreimportantly, what they're working and their levels of field expertise) on an new INDURE Web portal. Interested in nanotechnology, biotech, engineering and the like? Check out Purdue, IU, Notre Dame and Ball State faculty talent and subject matter expertise at https://www.indure.org/
A quick read of my Midwest Business column also provides more details: http://www.midwestbusiness.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=19634